Tag: Financial Cycles

Global financial cycles since 1880

Galina Potjagailo and Maik H. Wolters

Global financial cycles: a long-term affair

Today’s financial system is global: credit and several financial asset classes show booms and busts across countries, sometimes with severe repercussions to the global economy. Yet it is debated to what extent common dynamics rather than domestic cycles lie behind financial fluctuations and whether the impact of global drivers is growing. In a recent Staff Working Paper, we observe various global financial cycles going as far back as the 19th century. We find that a volatile global equity price cycle is nowadays the main driver of stock prices across advanced economies. Global cycles in credit and house prices have become larger and longer over the last 30 years, having gained relevance in economies that are more financially open and developed.

Continue reading “Global financial cycles since 1880” →

Global Financial Cycles and risk premiums

Felix Ward, Moritz Schularick, Òscar Jordà and Alan M Taylor

In April the Bank hosted a workshop organised jointly with the IMF and ECB, on the theme of “International Spillovers of Shocks and Macroeconomic Policies”. In this guest post, the authors of one of the papers presented look at how and why co-movement of international equity prices has increased over time.

Asset markets in advanced economies have become integrated to a degree never seen before in the history of modern finance. This is especially true for global equities starting in the 1990s. We find that this increase in synchronization is primarily driven by fluctuations in risk-appetite rather than in risk-free rates, or in dividends. Moreover, we find that U.S. monetary policy plays a major role in explaining such fluctuations. This transmission channel affects economies with both fixed and floating exchange rates, although the effects are more muted in floating rate regimes.

Continue reading “Global Financial Cycles and risk premiums” →